


Undefined Parameters

by lauawill



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-19
Updated: 2015-06-19
Packaged: 2018-04-05 04:35:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4166115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lauawill/pseuds/lauawill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A very early conversation about a very personal matter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Undefined Parameters

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cruisedirector](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cruisedirector/gifts).



> So there was a conversation among some very old J/Cers, and then this happened. This is all their fault.

She stared at the face on the viewscreen and frowned.

She knew almost nothing about the man. In the scant few days they'd worked together, she'd formed no impression of him other than that he would be a solid First Officer for her on this, her first command. He'd arrived highly recommended from his last posting on the  _Tyson_ , where he'd served for four years as Ops Chief. "Reliable," Captain T'Mela had written in the conclusion of her recommendation. "A strong leader and a capable officer." From the  _Tyson's_ grave Captain, the words were high praise indeed.

But she'd barely seen the man in action, and now First Officer Cavit was dead. 

Janeway tapped her fingertips against her cheek. The personnel record stated he'd had a wife and a son. He'd never mentioned them. He'd competed in the Junior Olympics in fencing as a teenager. He'd never mentioned it. He'd graduated at the top of his class from Starfleet Academy. But he'd never mentioned that, either.

Why? Because there had never been time, or because he'd thought she wouldn't be interested?

"I didn't know you at all, and I'm sorry," she murmured to the face on the view screen. A dull mantle of guilt settled over her. "I didn't know you long enough to get a feel for your leadership style or recognize the sound of your voice on the comm. I don't even know how you took your coffee. I'm sorry."

The face on the screen remained unmoved. 

Janeway sighed and opened a new file, tucking the futility of the act into the back of her mind where she hoped it wouldn't resurface. Even if they figured out a way to get these notifications back to the Alpha Quadrant, it might be years before they arrived. "Mrs. Cavit. Jeremiah," she dictated. "I regret to inform you that your husband and father —"

The Ready Room's chime sounded, and she closed the file. "Come."

Her Vulcan Chief of Security — and her most trusted officer on this suddenly fraught mission — strolled through. "Captain. If I might…have a moment of your time."

It wasn't quite a request, but the way he tilted his chin to one side let Janeway know that this meeting would not be strictly professional. She smiled and indicated the chair opposite her desk. "Of course, Tuvok. I assume you've come to check up on me?"

"Indeed." He folded himself into the chair and rested his hands in his lap. "If I may ask… How are you, Captain?"

She leaned back and stared at the ceiling. "I've just lost half my senior staff, I've doomed us to a 70,000 light year journey across the unknown galaxy, and I've just made the man I was sent to apprehend my First Officer. I'd say that wasn't a bad week's work."

Tuvok quirked an eyebrow at her but said nothing.

Janeway pinched the bridge of her nose. "I also have a raging headache, I'm afraid the coffee won't last as long as the journey will, and I already miss my Mom."

Tuvok nodded once. "I thought as much."

She favored him with a crooked smile. "What can I do for you, Tuvok?"

The Vulcan rested his elbows on the arms of the chair. "I have come to you with an issue of a…personal nature."

Janeway's eyebrows drew together…and then she gasped in sudden understanding. "Oh, Tuvok. You don't mean… Are you… Is it an… _emergency_?"

Tuvok shifted in his seat. "Ah. No. That is not the personal issue I wish to discuss. Although…" He emitted the tiniest of sighs. "It will be a concern eventually."

"We'll work with the Holographic Doctor. We'll figure it out." She swallowed hard. "I'm sure…someone…would be willing —"

"Captain."

"Yes, Tuvok?"

"The personal issue I wish to discuss with you is not  _my_ personal issue."

"I see. If someone has a personal problem that I can do something about, I want to know about it, Lieutenant." She sat back expectantly. "Well? Whose problem are we talking about?"

Tuvok met her eyes and held them. "Yours."

"Mine?" Janeway waved a hand at him in tacit dismissal. "I'm fine, Tuvok. I've been separated from Mark before. This will just be a slightly longer separation." She rose and moved around the end of the desk. "So I thank you for your concern, but everything is under control."

She had crossed all the way to the Ready Room door before she realized he hadn't moved from the chair. "Tuvok?"

"The issue is not with Mark."

Janeway chuckled softly, grateful for even a moment of inadvertent humor on this difficult evening. "If you're here to tell me someone has a crush on me…" She stopped mid-sentence when he raised an eyebrow at her. "You've got to be kidding."

Tuvok remained maddeningly silent.

"Of course you're not kidding," Janeway sighed. "Tell me what you know."

Tuvok shifted again in the chair, a sure sign of extreme discomfort. "I have been serving with humans for most of my adult life, Captain, and while I am not well-versed in these matters, I am cognizant of…certain patterns of behavior."

"Granted."

"There is a crewman who seems to display a…fixation on you."

Janeway frowned and returned to his side of the Ready Room. "A 'fixation'? Not a dangerous one, I hope."

"No, Captain. Quite the opposite. In fact, in his very short time aboard this vessel he has already become quite…protective of you. Quite solicitous."

Janeway wracked her brain, unable to fathom which man Tuvok might be talking about. "His very short time…" she repeated to herself, and then smiled. "Ensign Kim is very far from home. He's young and impressionable, and —"

"Not Mister Kim."

"No?"

"No, Captain."

"Paris?"

"No."

She blinked at him. "The Holographic Doctor?"

The Vulcan did not even dignify the question with a response. 

She folded her arms across her chest. "All right, out with it, Tuvok. Which of these young men has already formed a Mommy Complex about the Captain?"

Tuvok looked up at her. "He is not a _young_ man. And I am utterly certain there is no…'Mommy Complex' at work in the way he views you. He regards you as an equal…much as you view him."

Janeway sat down hard on the edge of her desk.

"I believe that you would be wise to define parameters regarding your personal relationship with Commander Chakotay."

"I'm engaged," she reminded him.

"And 70,000 light years from your fiancé."

"You think so little of me?"

"No, Captain."

"Of him, then?"

"No, Captain. But I am a student of human nature. Two humans such as yourselves, stranded very far from home, who can find their equal only each other…"

"Oh, of course. I see it now. Him, the dashing outlaw with the mysterious past. And little me, falling in love with the dangerous rogue I was sent to arrest. You're absolutely right."

The Vulcan blinked at her. "Captain, I only mean to caution you in your dealings with this man."

Janeway grinned and shook her head at him. "I didn't take you for a reader of romance novels, Tuvok. And let me tell you, what you're describing is a very bad romance novel indeed." She crossed to the door again. "I appreciate your concern, but there's really no cause. And if there ever is cause, I promise I'll get right on defining those parameters. So if there's nothing else?"

He rose quickly, and Janeway suppressed a guffaw, watching him try to wrap his dignity around him like a suit of armor. "No, Captain."

"I'll see you at duty call in the morning, then." 

"Yes, Captain. Good night," he murmured, and vacated her Ready Room with almost indecent haste.

When the door chime sounded again half an hour later, she had just finished dictating the unlikely-to-be-heard letter to Cavit's family. "Come," she said, and tapped a series of save and send commands into the console.

"Captain, I have next month's duty roster." She recognized the soft, slightly rough-edged voice before she looked up, and with it came the impression of clean air and freshly cut grass that always accompanied his presence.

"Commander," she smiled and crossed to the replicator, waving to the window seat as she passed by. "Have a seat and we'll go over it together. Coffee?"

"Thank you, Captain."

"Cream and two sugars, right?"

-END-


End file.
